


SChain

by Scedasticity



Series: Crossover Sburb Sessions [14]
Category: Homestuck, Pandora Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - SBURB Fusion, Gen, as far as pairings go i'm writing them all pale tbh, i said less sad not less traumatic, the violence isn't described enough to be graphic but it is ugly just so you know, throwing you in the homestuck deep end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: In the beginning, everyone finds their way to Sablier and the Abyss, and thenbeyondit.In the end, it works out all right, and the Abyss is restored, in an... unexpectedly amphibian fashion.In the middle it's messy.





	SChain

**== > MAID OF LIGHT: SKIP TO THE END**

"And we'll be able to get out from there?" Raven presses anxiously. "The doors will still connect, even though it's the… restored Abyss?"

"The frog Abyss," Oz says, in a voice that sounds like a whisper but still manages to be clearly audible. Alice helpfully kicks him in the shin. 

"I'm not sure about the doors," you admit. "…Or about Sablier, even. I think it should have merged in, but I'm not sure. But even if they're missing, you and I between us should be able to identify what way we want to leave, where to go," Light for information and Blood to find the people you hope to get back to, "and White Alyss should be able to bring us there." Partially due to Space and partially left over from her… integration in the… previous state of the Abyss. 

You do so enjoy knowing things. 

"That's all very well, Miss Sharon," Vincent says. "But we still have not addressed whether _everyone on this platform_ will be going along, or how far exactly they will be going."

No, you haven't. You've been avoiding weighing in, as you can't exactly be said to be _impartial_.

"Huh?" Alice says, then flings a proprietary arm around her sister's shoulders. "No, Alyss is coming with us all the way, she doesn't want to be the Intention of the Abyss anymore." She scowls in Leo's direction. "And Oz has his own body now, and he's as human as the _rest_ of us are—"

"That's not the question," Leo says tiredly. 

It's not. There isn't any question about all the "heroes" — the _players_ — returning, and returning all the way, despite several people's… unusual origins, several other people's having died, and everyone's unusual current state of existence. (You personally have been trying to avoid throwing the term "god tier" around, but it's lurking underneath every discussion of humanity or the lack thereof.)

And there isn't any question about non-players Lottie, Lily, and Dug Baskerville returning all the way, or Duke Barma. (Despite various threats leveled at Duke Barma by… well, it's faster to say who _didn't_ at some point threaten to leave him in the Medium. Reim genuinely is not seriously annoyed by him; Ada would never threaten such a thing; White Alyss may not have noticed he exists; Lily stuck to mundanely threatening to kill him — not to imply that no one else ever threatened to kill him, just most people also got more creative.)

And the scattering of carapacians and consorts on the platform are those who already agreed to stay in the Abyss, to keep the Core of the Abyss company. (The carapacians probably won't change. You aren't as sure about the consorts.)

The issue is the sprites. 

The silence is becoming awkward when Raven bursts out with, "Break should come back."

Someone said it, and not you or Reim. Excellent.

"There's no reason he shouldn't," Raven rushes on. "When he can be bothered to stop the… flashing light effect he looks… not that much odder than he already did…"

Personally you find the hairstyle change (inherited from your first prototyping with Emily) and the outfit change (inherited from Reim's first prototyping with an ugly porcelain shepherd figurine) rather noticeable, not to mention he's usually overall slightly tinted either pink or turquoise, and has a tendency to hover when he forgets not to. Perhaps you're underestimating how odd people think Break looks generally? You're not about to disagree, though. 

"Sprites are native to this altered reality," Duke Barma says. "Removing them—"

Oz holds up a finger. "You may not realize this, Duke Barma, _not being a player_ , but sprites- _squared_ aren't intended to exist _at all_. We've already broken that rule, so Break might as well come back with us. I don't know why we're even discussing this. Next question?"

You should have trusted Raven and Oz to want Break back almost as much as you and Reim do, and to dismiss his condition as unimportant. With Oz this firmly in support you should have Alice and Ada, too — so with you and Reim that's all the Derse dreamers. So that's at worst a tie, if it comes to a vote among the players. You're not willing to call Echo a sure thing despite her new autonomy, but she's likely to follow Oz's lead, too. 

"We certainly don't have any objection to Break joining us," you say lightly, as if you haven't been agonizing about this. "Although I realize we've all been assuming you want to, Break—"

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble," Break murmurs.

He's been a lot more anxious about this than he's wanted to let on. 

Lily stomps her foot. "That's not fair! If Hatter gets to come back even though he's a sprite, then Glen should, too!" She glances guiltily at Leo. "Um, the other Glen."

Elliot crosses his arms. "They're hardly equivalent. Break died just hours before he was brought back, and with the… squaring he's… It's hardly any different from all the player revivals. Oswald was some… bizarre salvage operation of… spiritual scraps."

While that's indisputable, you suspect Elliot's feelings have more to do with a persisting grudge over Oswald's suppression of Leo. 

(You can't really blame him. Some of the game's traumas were likely unavoidable, but Oswald made some things necessary which might not have been.)

The whole sprite situation is just a mess, really. It's _worth it_ , to have Break back — but such a mess.

* * *

**== > PAST KNIGHT OF RAGE: REALIZE TRAUMATIC NECESSITY**

Vincent is quite certain Gilbert will have vanished into the wilds of the Land of Weft and Snags, maybe even gone looking for his Denizen, and ran off to look for him in an obvious panic that might have been funny under other circumstances. He yelled at you not to follow him; you might have anyway if you hadn't had an alternate plan. 

See, Vincent probably has a better chance of predicting Gilbert than you do, but probably _not_ better than a (now god tier) Hero of Light and definitely not better than Break. (Breaksprite. Sprite-squared. Whatever you should be calling him. Probably Break.) So you go to the Land of Pearl and Labyrinth instead, and hope you don't have to break the news to them, and hope _someone_ finds Gilbert before it's too late. 

You aren't expecting to find Gilbert sitting in Sharon's base of operations, huddled over a cup of tea and plainly exhausted but smiling faintly. 

You _really_ aren't expecting to find Oz, apparently in the middle of devouring a plate of tea cakes, or Alice, apparently trying to get past Sharon to the alchemiter controls and saying something about meat. (You also still aren't expecting Sharon's appearance — for some reason god tier made her look a good three to five years closer to her actual age and you are not used to it — but that's _hardly important_.)

"Elliot!" Oz says happily. "How lucky, I was wondering how we'd catch up with you!"

You stare at him for a second, then point accusingly. " _You_!"

"Me?" Oz says. 

"You _exploded_!"

Oz blinks. "What?"

"You did," Sharon says, still shielding the alchemiter controls from Alice. "Or your body did, when you ascended. It showed up in Skaia's clouds so everyone could see. It was really quite distressing, if I hadn't been listening through Eques I would have thought something had gone wrong. I think Break wasn't very surprised, though."

Gil looks faintly ill. "I'm… glad I missed that. And that we had Ada with us."

" _Technically_ that was Jack's body," Oz says. " _This_ is _my_ body." He sounds extremely satisfied about that. "Really? He exploded?"

"Close enough," Sharon says. 

"Good," Alice says.

"Don't say ' _he_ ' exploded so casually!" you snap. Oz hasn't been in control in days, but— "For all we knew you'd died, too! And we didn't know if we could recover Alice without you! What the hell?!"

"I'm sorry we couldn't tell you what was going on," Gilbert says. "Jack didn't seem to realize Oz and Alice were able to operate freely as their dreamselves when he was keeping them suppressed, and we didn't want to risk alerting him to that, or that we were planning anything. He probably would have interfered somehow."

"We even got Echo-chan to come with us so her Void thing would keep Skaia from giving us away," Oz adds.

"She's gone back to Dust and Thrones, if you're wondering," Sharon says. "Didn't want to leave Noise unsupervised any longer than necessary."

Understandable.

"I really wasn't expecting it to kill him," Oz continues thoughtfully. "Since it's technically his body anyway. All I thought would happen on that end is extracting all of me, and B-Rabbit's powers, and severing the contract."

"Well, it did kill him," you snap. " _Messily_."

" _Good_ ," Alice repeats. "Serves him right. I hope it hurt."

"That's _beside_ the point. And what the hell did you _do_ , anyway?"

"There's a way to ascend to god tier from your dreamself," Oz says. "Or from what Break said it's _supposed_ to be for if your dreamself died or you already had a dreamself resurrection, so you only have one self, but it doesn't _require_ having only one self."

You blink. Now that you're paying attention Oz _is_ wearing a rather unusual color scheme, for him. And Alice is still in red, but — there's a gear symbol on the front, and a hood hanging behind her. "Well I wish someone had told _me_!"

(There have been several dreamself resurrections since everyone got here, but you were the first — died in Isla Yura's mansion and woke up on Prospit, which was… extremely confusing. From what you've learned about Skaia since, it means someone kissed your body, and from what you've picked up about what happened in the mansion, it must have been Leo or Vincent. You haven't asked and are kind of afraid to.)

"The game was probably going to tell you on its own schedule and Break just got in early," Sharon says, and activates the alchemiter to create — a plate of sandwiches. "Do sit down, Elliot. Have some tea. You look pale."

Fine. You make for the table. "Yes, well, I thought Oz exploded and Gilbert was — missing." More precisely you thought he was looking for the first Heroic death he could find. "Vincent is frantic, by the way."

Sharon sets down the sandwiches and serves you some tea. (She has left Alice unattended at the alchemiter. You hope her grist supply can handle demands for meat.) "I'm sure he is."

Gilbert winces. "I really did not mean to worry him again…"

"More importantly," Sharon continues, "since Jack died, has Oswald backed off?"

You scowl at the tea. " _No_." Well, it has been a little while… "At least, not as of his sending Vincent impatient messages that Vincent pretended not to get so he could look for Gilbert instead."

Oswald lost control of Leo shortly after he entered the game and you stormed over to the Land of Ash and Conifers to confront him. (With firm manly shouting, not hysterical screeching, no matter what Lottie Baskerville insisted on claiming to everyone before she got carried off by giclopses.) Leo was the player-hero, not Oswald, and Oswald had no business seizing control anyway. You're not sure whether it was the justness of your argument, Leo's reaction to seeing you, or Oswald not wanting to have to deal with talking mouse people and an advising sprite with the head of a hideous baby doll Lottie was carrying around for some ungodly reason. You didn't ask; you were just glad Leo was back. But after the first time Jack took over Oz in the Medium (in an extremely traumatic incident all around), Oswald popped back up, too. He's been careful to avoid you ever since, and he didn't back down even when Gilbert used his new god tier powers (courtesy the extremely traumatic incident) to suppress Jack for a while.

Alice slams a plate piled high with identical chicken drumsticks on the table, and sits down in front of it. "What does stupid Oswald think he's doing now? He'd better not be trying to kill Alyss!"

"For multiple reasons," Sharon says. 

"If he's thinking of winning the game killing the Hero of Space should be out of the question," Oz says. "If he's still thinking he can change the past, though…"

"That's not going to work from here," Alice says firmly. "The best he could possibly do is create a doomed timeline."

 _Hopefully_ Oswald is intelligent enough to realize attacking Alyss is a bad idea on purely practical grounds. His control of Jabberwocky is good enough that Cheshire would be manageable — but _Cheshiresprite_ is another matter entirely. "He went back to Ash and Conifers I think. Maybe he thinks Leo's Doom quests will let him fix the doomed timeline thing."

Gilbert looks disappointed. "He really should be able to understand that the… that this… that _everything has changed_ and sticking to old plans is…"

"Yes, well." Sharon folds her hands on the table. "The… previous Glen's irrationality is another reason we kept this plan quiet."

Oz's eyes go wide. " _Oh_." Gilbert seems to understand a few seconds later, and blanches. 

"What?" you demand. 

"Well," Gilbert says. "I hadn't considered this, and of course the circumstances are different, but as far as the… functions of Skaia are concerned… what worked with Oz should work with Leo. He would ascend in his dreamself, and his body would… I assume it would die."

"…Oh," you say.

You don't want to picture what happened to Oz — Oz's body — _what you were all thinking of as Oz's body_ happening to Leo. Especially since it's really definitely Leo's body. But if you can't get rid of Oswald any other way… "What do you have to do? To ascend that way." Hopefully it would be less awful than the usual way. All the ascensions so far have left _someone_ severely traumatized. 

Gilbert winces. "That. Was stressful."

"You go to the center of your dream moon," Alice explains. "There are these… Sacrificial Slab things that look kind of like Quest Beds. You stand on the one with your symbol, and then, uh…"

"I had Raven blast… the whole area around both slabs," Gilbert says. "Which may have been overkill. Break wasn't sure whether complete destruction was a requirement. But what definitely needs to happen is the person has to die."

Oh. Exactly the same as the other ascension thing, then. 

You imagine carrying Leo's unconscious dreamself down into Prospit's moon, and laying him out on a slab, and then either killing him or standing by while Gilbert kills him at your request, thus causing his body to — die.

You imagine Leo a prisoner in his own body as Oswald gambles with all your lives in pursuit of a goal which would _erase_ Oz and Alice, and steals his quests and roles which come from this infernal "game" but which should belong to _Leo_ and not Glen Baskerville.

" _Shit_ ," you mutter. "I haven't been back to Prospit much — how hard is it to get there?"

* * *

( **== > PAST PAST SYLPH OF BREATH: BE ADVISED OF THE PLAN**

You're aware, though no one has actually explicitly told you, that the Jack situation is not improving. Gil can still force him out of control, but the first time Jack was silenced for several days, and most recently it wasn't even six hours before Oz started getting twitchy and asking people to keep a safe distance. Reim and Sharon reluctantly agreed that Gil should start holding off, so it doesn't lose efficacy completely.

Reim thinks Jack is getting stronger — thinks something about the Medium is _healthy_ for badly damaged souls, and so Jack is _healing_ , and, well, technically it _is_ his body…

(You could point out that according to your father's account Jack indicated he was dying, verbally willed the body to Oz, and then vanished without a trace for twenty-five years. Lutwidge covered enough property law that you're confident saying that if Jack did that with a _house_ , he shouldn't expect to get it back without a court case. You haven't pointed it out, because you're sure Jack doesn't care and you suspect no one else does, either.)

You've mostly just been seeing Oz, and Alice, on Derse's moon when you're dreaming, now that their dreamselves are active. You've shown them around and you've gone spying on the Dersites a bit. It would even be fun if they had any choice in the matter.

As it is you are the only one who can go talk to them on Derse's moon without, well, making a special trip to Derse's moon. Echo has an excuse to be out there, since she's in charge of visiting the people held prisoner on Derse itself, but everyone else has to be _careful_ and visit _sparingly_ so Jack doesn't catch on. (Not that he could interfere with the dreamselves even if he tried, probably, but he might escalate in other ways if he knew he was being outmaneuvered, and he could do a lot of damage if he did.) So, you've been carrying messages a lot.

You open your eyes on your tower room, a purple reflection of your Lutwidge dorm, and find Oz sitting by your bookshelf, apparently engrossed in something from your novel collection. He wears an expression of mild interest. Alice is reading over his shoulder with an expression of horrified fascination.

You hope it's not one of the gothic romances, but decide not to ask.

"Good, you're here," you say instead. "Break asked me to tell you that we should meet in Gil's tower, he's on his way — he wants to talk about the secret plan."

"Oh!" Oz returns the book to the shelf without letting you get a look at the title. "Excellent. Hopefully that means Gil will be there too… Thank you, Ada."

You give him a reproachful look. "I didn't know there was a secret plan."

"Yes, well, if it helps, I don't actually know what the secret plan is," Oz replies with a shrug. "Just in case something _leaked_. But I guess we're talking about it now?" He gives Alice a hopeful look.

Alice shakes her head. "Just that there is one. If we're going to wait in Seaweed-Head's tower, can we bring the book? It's really boring there."

"Well, as long as Ada doesn't mind us borrowing her book…"

"No, of course not," you say.

It's _The Mysteries of Superbia_. Dammit. 

Gil's tower room _is_ on the boring side, because it's based on his sad lonely grown-up apartment. You shortly wish you'd brought a book yourself, because you find yourself trying to figure out how far into the novel Oz and Alice have gotten. It can't be more than halfway through, you think — probably less. Maybe you can distract them before they get to the seduction scene.

Before you can come up with a distraction or, you're mostly sure, they get to the seduction scene, Break arrives, flying in the window. Gil arrives less gracefully, maybe because he's newer to flying or maybe because he's carrying Echo piggyback. Having only one arm probably isn't helping, either.

"Echo-chan!" Oz says. "I wasn't expecting to see you today — new developments on Derse?"

"No," Echo says. "At least not that I am aware of."

"I asked Echo to join us in her capacity as Hero of Void," Break says. "We believe this should minimize the chances of our appearing in a Skaia cloud-vision or getting spied on otherwise."

"So the secret plan is ready?" Oz asks hopefully.

"More or less. Let's sit down — it may take a while to explain."

"I'll make tea," Gil says, apparently feeling like the host since the meeting is in his tower. It takes him a few minutes to find the tea things, since he was never actually awake here before ascending. It also takes longer than it might have to make the tea. There probably hasn't been much of a chance for him to practice lately. (Oz watches him closely the entire time, but manages not to jump in to help.)

"The plan," Break says when tea has been served, "exploits a loophole in the secondary method of ascending to god tier."

Interesting! "Is it any nicer than the first method?" you ask hopefully.

"No," Break says. "Possibly worse."

Oh.  
)

* * *

**== > PAST SEER OF LIFE: ABOUT THE SPRITES**

At this point, you effectively have no sprite. You knew it would happen, and it was a sacrifice you were happy to make. (Break as a sprite was constrained by the _role_ of sprites enough that you could tell it was distressing him. Sprite-squaring was _forbidden knowledge_ suggested by the whispers of the… things out beyond Derse. It worked very well, as far as you can tell.) 

Alice's sprite disappeared fairly early on. You haven't been able to find out what happened to it. Gil's sprite was destroyed — or at least badly damaged and scared away, since it hasn't come back since — during Jack's first Medium takeover. Oz's sprite is dumb as a brick (presumably due to prototyping _with a literal brick_ ) and wouldn't stop following the body around regardless of who was in control of it, although hopefully Oz will be able to get its attention now.

So the only Derse dreamer who still has a sprite doing… sprite things is Ada. And Ada is happy to loan him out, but, well…

Becoming a sprite has not, in your opinion, made Zai Vessalius any more pleasant to be around. It does seem to have made him somewhat more focused on helping Ada directly rather than attacking Oz, which is good, but you would still rather not have to deal with him. 

The Prospit dreamers are, you believe, in slightly better shape on the sprite front. Zwei — Noise — did _kill_ hers, true, and Vincent reportedly had some plan for a second prototyping that Gil very strongly vetoed. Gil wouldn't say more than that, but you suspect it isn't a coincidence that he asked Sharon if she knew whether Bernard Nightray's head was found with his body. Really if that _is_ the case you think someone should consult Elliot, but you're just not sure how he'd react. (Everyone was happy to have Break back, but when Zai asked snidely if Oz had prototyped with Oscar, Ada, Oz, and Gil all reacted with horror to the idea alone.) You haven't had time to pursue it. Gil has probably been too distracted by the Jack problems that came up after that to even think about it.

The Jack problems, hopefully, are now done with. You were not expecting them to be done with quite so _messily_ , but they're done with, and you weren't left in suspense for long before Ada woke up from observing via dreamself and assured you nothing had gone wrong. 

(If you hadn't been careless and gotten your dreamself killed after visiting the prison on Derse, you could have been observing via dreamself, too. Very frustrating.)

Ada also passed along the message from Break that he was sending Oz, Alice, and Gil to Sharon's Land of Pearl and Labyrinth to regroup, Echo is going back to watch Noise, and Break will be doing the whole circuit to see how various people are responding. He is not planning on stopping by the Land of Vines and Pillars where you and Ada are. Ada seems to think it's because you both already know everything and he doesn't feel the need to spy on you. That's probably true, but you also suspect he's trying to avoid being yelled at for _not warning anyone about the exploding_.

So you're a little surprised when Break drops in, not too long after. He's frowning. 

"What happened?" you ask, concerned. "Oz and Alice…?"

"They're fine," he says. "Managed to connect with Elliot, even, and they'll probably all head for Prospit to reenact our trick with Leo."

"What's the matter then? Did Vincent do something?"

"No, the sewer rat is still searching Weft and Snags for his brother. Someone should probably stop him before he attacks the Denizen." That… actually sounds like a problem to you. "The problem is I went to the Battlefield to see if I could round up Oz's brainless sprite. I couldn't find it."

"Well, brainless doesn't mean incapable of wandering off…"

"I _also_ couldn't find Jack's body. Place with blood everywhere, yes, but no sign of anything more… substantial."

Oh. _Oh_. "You don't think the sprite… it did seem very interested in Jack, but… can sprites _do_ that?"

"I wouldn't have thought so," Break says. "But I was never a single-prototyped sprite, so I'm not certain. Even if I'm right, that doesn't mean something else couldn't have intervened."

So. You may now have a Jacksprite lurking somewhere. 

That's… you're not even sure how to express how you feel about that. 

"Should we warn people now, or wait until we're sure?"

"I'm going to try to find it first. There _are_ some other possible explanations…"

You really, _really_ hope one of them is true.

* * *

**== > PAST HEIR OF HEART: MEET YOUR NEW AND IMPROVED(?) SPRITE**

Gil has to go back to his Land to track down Vincent, who may still be under the impression that you died and Gil is taking it badly. He may have learned otherwise by now, but he might do something extremely reckless if he hasn't, so Gil has to go make sure and calm him down if necessary. So, that's where you're going. 

(You and Alice do not, technically, _need_ to come along. You just… would rather not let Gil out of your sight right now. And he would rather not let you out of his. And neither of you wants to send Alice off alone, and she doesn't want to leave either of you. And fine, Sharon may have had a point when she said the three of you were feeling _clingy_ , but when you left Elliot and Leo on Prospit, both god tier, Elliot was asking the Prospitians if they had anything he could use to handcuff himself to Leo and you don't think he was more than half joking, which is much clingier, so there.)

The first time you saw Weft and Snags you thought the forests of giant twine spools were hilarious, but now the same scenery is just making you… uneasy. Anxious, even. 

It probably has to do with how you haven't been back here since… since you… since Jack… since…

It all turned out all right, it's _fine_ , but your mind still sort of… slides around, trying to avoid the event itself. You… should maybe probably try to actually. Think about it. Deal with it, before it becomes yet another thing lurking in the back of your mind to cause problems later.

Maybe not while you're actually on Weft and Snags, though. Or while you need all your wits about you to deal with Vincent. (Learning Vincent's whole sorry story has given you more sympathy for him than when he was just Gil's supposed 'brother' and Echo's cruel master, but it hasn't actually made him any easier to deal with. Harder, in some ways, since he responds very badly to perceived pity. Plus there's the whole… _thing_ with Ada, which you are mostly-successfully trying not to think about. If she didn't know what she was getting into before, she certainly does after Zai's tantrum on the subject.)

You finally locate Vincent trying to — sure enough — find a way into the Denizen's lair. Gil apologizes for leaving him out of the loop but wants to know how he came to the Denizen conclusion when Gil has expressed no interest in said Denizen. Vincent ignores the question and attempts to cover up his relief with a wide variety of lewd insinuations. Instead of getting flustered, Gil returns an unamused stare; you're very proud of him. 

"If you want to catch up with Leo, we left him on Prospit with Elliot," you say before Vincent can try another approach at… whatever. "I'm not sure where they're going next. Possibly Ash and Conifers, but they may want to wait until, uh. They have the, uh… _cleanup_ figured out."

"…Cleanup?" Vincent asks, tone indicating he's fully aware he may not actually want to know. 

"We dealt with Oswald the same way we dealt with Jack," Alice says bluntly. 

"I wish I could have seen the look on his face," says a far, far too familiar voice.

You all wheel towards the cluster of spool-trees it came from. Vincent produces a knife. Gil draws his gun, and his clothes flicker back to the ridiculous brown Rogue outfit. (Not that you should talk, considering your hood length.) Alice manifests an approximation of B-Rabbit's scythe. You… don't. 

You could — you did some tests back on Derse, and apparently you and Alice can now both use the full selection of (non-apocalyptic) powers simultaneously. (Alice was _delighted_ , and you were… not displeased, anyway. You're glad Alice has them, and you don't particularly enjoy them, but — they're yours.) But you don't. 

Even though he's not in your head this time (you're not in his head, _whatever_ ), you just — can't. 

Jack floats out into view — and floating is the word, because he is a sprite. Green-tinted and vaguely blocky around the shoulders — he's _your_ sprite.

"Hello!" he says brightly.

"Jack," Alice says. "I am going to cut you _limb from limb_."

It's said calmly, for Alice, but the depth of anger in her voice takes the breath out of you. 

"But I'm a sprite!" Jack says, spinning out of the way of her initial slash. "You're short enough on sprites already!"

But what saves him from Alice's next attack isn't any sprite-related second thoughts but the sudden appearance of Demios the Head-hunter. Not that it's defending him — Vincent is doubtless equally set on rending Jack limb from limb — but it's not very good at teamwork.

Notably bad, in fact.

Raven materializes above you, but stays there, defensive, rather than joining the fray. Gil isn't shooting, either, probably due to the risk of hitting Alice. "Vince, can you _try_ to keep it from attacking Alice?" Gil glances over at you. You aren't sure what your face looks like, but his eyes widen and he takes several steps to stand between you and the fight. 

That won't do. You move forward — on Gil's left so he'll have a harder time pushing you back, and also you won't risk messing up his aim — to stand side by side.

"Oz?" Gil says softly. Worriedly.

"I'm fine," you hear yourself say distantly, but _that_ 's not right. "I'm— that's supposed to be my _sprite_." True, but beside the point. "I can't — I can't try to attack anything while I can… hear him laughing." All right, that was maybe _more_ honest than you were aiming for, hopefully Vincent isn't listening. 

Jack is laughing at Demios at the moment, calling it Miranda and asking if it regrets missing the opportunity to "bag" Oswald, and if "all those Nightrays" made up for it at all. This clearly isn't improving Vincent's mood any. 

"But I expect not, since you didn't get to keep the he—eeeeerrr!" The monologue breaks off in a raspy, inhuman screech — more like a couple of bricks scraping together, in fact — of (presumably) pain when Alice takes off the tip of his tail. "Alice, that hurt!" He flies higher to put some distance between them, and hovers directly behind Demios's skull. "I'm a sprite now! I just want to help!"

"If you want to help then hold. _Still_!"

"No, really! I've always felt empty and purposeless, but sprites always have purpose! I'm a changed man!"

That… doesn't feel like a lie. 

Break pushed past the sprite… instincts, for lack of a better word, more or less successfully even before the squaring, but that was Break. Jack, like he's saying, like he's said before, is empty — and mutable. He swings wildly between kindness and cruelty with no motivation, and fixates on goals for the sake of feeling _something_. You can see how the… sprite-ness would find him an especially malleable subject. 

No. No, you are _not_ going to talk yourself into accepting the assistance of a Jack-based sprite. Sprites have to provide information, and how could anyone trust anything Jack says, ever again? Maybe the sprite transformation has reformed him, but maybe it hasn't, and how could you tell until it was too late?

(And hearing his voice has something in you paralyzed — certain you have to stand still, you have to throw _everything_ into holding still, or there will be _blood_ —)

"If they don't take him down in the next five minutes I think we should leave," you say quietly. "Find Break, maybe. Also if Demios gets in Alice's way again she may destroy it and we… actually, do we want that?"

Gil glances at Vincent. " _I'm_ not at all certain it would be a bad idea, but… No, wait, has been using it on underlings, we shouldn't disarm him."

To think you have to _agree_ with 'we shouldn't disarm Vincent'. Oh, well. 

"Vince, we aren't getting anywhere with this," Gil says, a bit louder. "And he may be playing with us. We're thinking we'll withdraw for now — I don't know if you want to try to take him without interference, or try to track him, or…?"

Inspiration strikes. "What we need to do is talk to Ada and have her send _Zai_ to track him."

Vincent glances at the ongoing fight. Alice has summoned a few of B-Rabbit's attack chains; as you watch she almost takes out Demios's eye. Or eye socket, anyway. "…Perhaps that might be best."

" _Jack_!" yells a — actually quite familiar voice. 

Gil says a very rude word. You bet he picked it up from Break. 

"Of course," you sigh, as _Oswaldsprite_ flies into view. " _Of course_ it's him, too. Vincent, is that the right color to be Leo's sprite?"

"Yes," Vincent says blankly. "And the clothes are right."

Oswald blithely flies right in, evading both Alice and Demios, and grabs Jack by the shoulders and shakes him. " _What have you done now?!_ "

Alice falls back to gape at them, so at least that saves you having to call her off somehow. 

"I haven't done anything! I'm going to be a proper sprite and help my player."

"The hell you are," Alice yells, but lands next to you rather than return to the fight. "I can't decide whether or not I want to attack Glen," she complains. 

Demios is attacking with renewed vigor, aiming for Oswald at least as much as Jack, but not having a lot of luck with either. Vincent sighs and dismisses it, finally. "Keep Raven ready," he mutters.

"How did you _kill Glen's body_ ," Oswald says. 

" _Leo's_ body," you say sharply, because honestly with Gil and Alice at your side, _on_ your side, Oswald doesn't much frighten you. "And he didn't. It was a natural consequence of Leo ascending to god tier in his dreamself, which was no one's first choice but you just couldn't back off. Why would you think Jack did it when it happened to him first?"

"Why does Jack do _anything_?" Oswald says and all right, that's fair. 

He goes back to ignoring you and trying to throttle Jack. Jack is too busy trying to persuade Oswald to address you, either, not that you're complaining. 

There's just… a sprite fight, and then the four of you just… standing there.

"I feel like we should do something," Gil says after a while. "But I have no idea what."

You give him a critical look. "I think what _you_ should be doing is dismissing Raven. I know your stamina is up but you're starting to sweat."

Gil grimaces a little, but glances past you at Alice (scythe still at the ready) and does so.

"Neither of them are using Chains," Vincent says. "Can't Hatter still use his?"

"Yes," Gil says, which is oversimplifying dramatically, but even now you have to agree with not exposing potential weaknesses of Break's to _Vincent_.

"It's probably not the sprite thing," you say. "All of me was ripped out of Jack's body when I ascended, so that broke the contract with B-Rabbit. And Jabberwock's current contract is with Leo specifically, not Glen, not the body, so he'll be off with Leo."

"Ah," says Vincent. "What about — Zai, then? Does he have Gryphon?"

You shrug. "He hasn't tried to kill me with it." Zai is above Oswald in your personal hierarchy of distressing things, but these days he's significantly below Jack.

"He hasn't summoned the Chain itself," Break says, unfolding himself from behind a thread-shrubbery. Everyone tries to look unsurprised with varying degrees of success. "But he can create a sort of attack ray that peppers underlings with little beaks and claws. It's very strange." Break looks at the sprite fight. "I'm sorry, I was coming to warn you, but I see I was too— Is that Glen?"

"It's Oswald, yes." Although— "That's actually an interesting metaphysical question. Does Oswald still count as Glen in this condition?" And— "What about the other past Glens? Are they here or with Leo?"

"For Leo's sake," says Vincent, "I hope they're here."

(You don't know whether Vincent regrets touching the Abyss door, back in Sablier. He might. He might not, because despite everything, he succeeded in keeping Gil from being used as the next Glen. And becoming Glen isn't dying, not how Vincent thought at the time, but it's not something you'd wish on anyone you liked. Considering what happens to them when the next Glen succeeds, it's arguably _worse_ than death.)

"An excellent question," says Break. He frowns. "The bricksprite seemed fascinated with Jack the whole time, so I could almost believe it prototyped itself, but Leo's was fairly normal, wasn't it?"

"I thought so," says Vincent. "And if anything it liked Leo more than Oswald. Before he backed off the first time it kept getting in his face and asking if he was really its player."

You don't bother to muffle a snicker at the mental image. Nobody so much as gives you a reproachful look, so it must be fine. 

"Hmmm," says Break. "Cheshiresprite was adamant that his Alyss hasn't left the Land of Wells and Frogs in several days. At this point I can't think of anyone else who would think prototyping Jack was a good idea, not after—"

"Incidents," Gil interrupts before Break can finish. You appreciate it.

"Quite. Possibly Zwei, purely for the sake of chaos, but…"

But since Duldee was destroyed and Noise and Echo had dreamself resurrections, Noise has been much less… Zwei-like. Not so you'd be comfortable leaving Ada alone with her, but enough that you don't think she'd go out of her way to… sprite-resurrect someone both Echo and Vincent strongly dislike. 

"I don't think so," Vincent says. 

Break nods acknowledgement and continues. "On the other hand, I can think of a few people who might be interested in prototyping Glen — Oswald — but most of them are locked up on Derse. Again, there's Noise, but…"

"If Jack had seemed any less surprised I'd think it was him who prototyped Oswald," you say. "…What am I saying, it still could have been him. But I think we can be confident Oswald had nothing to do with prototyping Jack."

"Maybe an Agent?" Gil suggests doubtfully. "Trying to sabotage us?"

"Hmmm," Break says again. 

The sprite fight continues. 

"If we aren't killing Jack right now, we should go to Wells and Frogs," Alice says finally. "Make sure Alyss is coping with the exploding Jack thing all right."

"Yes, you three do that," Break agrees. "Vincent, would it be keeping you from anything important to ask you to watch the sprites until I can arrange for someone else?"

"Nothing urgent," Vincent says. "Although I don't promise not to kill Jack, should the chance arise."

Break doesn't press him on that.

* * *

**== > PAST ROGUE OF BLOOD: HEAR FURTHER SPRITE REVELATIONS**

You haven't been back to Wells and Frogs since the aftermath of the debacle that started with Vincent trying to kill Cheshiresprite (which he claims was a carefully considered precaution to eliminate a dangerous element but you're pretty sure was an ill-thought-out attempt to relieve his stress from the whole Noise-Echo-Duldee mess) and finished with Vincent in his dreamself and Alyss having the session's first god tier resurrection. (Vincent is _damn_ lucky Sharon figured out what was going on before it was too late and wasn't too far away — and that Ada was with Sharon, because if Sharon had to do the resurrection kiss Break might have killed Vincent _again_.) Alice was escorting her sister back from the Battlefield, and you came along partly as backup for Alice (Oz was tied up providing moral support for Ada, who was understandably shaken) and partly because Vincent asked you to see if you could find Dormouse's blood mirror. His contract with Demios had passed to his dreamself, but he wanted to keep his options open. You found the blood mirror, broken, in the middle of a much bloodier scene than Sharon and Ada described; you did _not_ find Vincent's body, and Cheshiresprite smugly told Alyss he 'cleaned up', so that was horrifying. 

(The place on Weft and Snags where Jack attacked you is even bloodier. You went back and looked, later — you were unconscious for almost all the incident. Just took a chain through the chest from behind, hit your head on a rock when you went down, and woke up above the Battlefield with brown clothes and a ridiculous bandana-domino mask. You feel stupidly guilty about avoiding what Oz and Alice suffered through, but as Break pointed out, your being awake for it would not in any way have improved Oz's experience, so you can't regret it.)

(Oz has said exactly one word about the incident — "sorry" the first time you spoke afterwards — and gets very vague and worryingly remote if conversation gets too near the subject. Alice has been slightly more forthcoming — it was messy, a dreamself resurrection wasn't practical, getting you to your Quest Bed was tricky, Jack is awful, and also she froze Jack in time for almost half an hour (with _no_ training, practice, or god-tier powerups, isn't she amazing) so he couldn't dismiss her before she got all the way to the Quest Bed.)

(When you saw _Jack_ again, he smiled sunnily, said it was good to see you'd pulled yourself together, and apologized that you'd missed the _show_.)

(You're _fine_. You weren't even awake for it. But you are _never_ going to forgive him for doing that to Oz.)

Anyway the point is, if Oz and Alice can go to Weft and Snags you can certainly visit Wells and Frogs without undue stress. 

It's quite pretty here, really. Plus now that you're god tier you can just fly out when you put a foot wrong, can't adjust your balance properly with just one arm, and fall in one of the _damn_ wells.

Oz laughs at you until he walks right into one out of pure carelessness. He emerges soaking wet and with an armload of frogs. "Isn't it dangerous for these guys to be down there?"

"It would be if they were normal frogs in normal wells, but…"

"Good point."

Cheshiresprite appears to meet you before you get too close to Alyss. He gives you a mildly disdainful look and Oz a good minute of deeply suspicious scrutiny before turning to Alice. "You're sure that's all B-Rabbit and no Jack?"

(Alyss's feelings about Jack are still deeply conflicted. Cheshiresprite, however, has become very Jack-hostile: when Alyss went to see Jack while he was in sole control, he ignored her in favor of destroying things on Oz's planet, and it _hurt her feelings_. Between that and Break _somehow_ convincing him that Break is Top Sprite and Should Be Respected, Cheshiresprite has become an ally in keeping Jack away from Alyss and anti-Jack activity in general.)

"Yes, positive," Alice says impatiently. "Did Break tell you Jack's a _sprite_ now?" Cheshire hisses, but nods. "Well the mystery sprite stuff gets even _better_. Now _Oswald_ — Glen — is _also_ a sprite."

Cheshire hisses _harder_ — reasonable enough given Oswald's openly stated goal of erasing Alyss in particular, though you guess there was some preexisting animosity there anyway.

Alice makes a face and nods. "We went to all this trouble to get him out of control of Leo, but he's still found a way to — or he implied it wasn't his idea, but— Well, anyway, so far he seems too busy fighting Jack to attack the rest of us, but… be aware."

"Cheshire will claw his eyes out," Cheshire says, and allows Alice past to approach Alyss and the 'ectobiology' equipment.

Alyss greets Alice with a smile and holds up a multicolored frog to be admired. Alice attempts to look interested and mostly fails. When they hug, the frog ends up on Alyss's head somehow. They seem to be doing all right.

You and Oz hang back, far enough away that you aren't threatening to Alyss or Cheshiresprite, but close enough that you could jump in if it was necessary. You aren't expecting trouble, though. 

"Do you think she'll want these frogs or should I put them down somewhere?" Oz wonders aloud. 

"…Probably put them down."

From the way Cheshiresprite's eyes follow the frogs as they scatter, not sabotaging Alyss's quests has been a struggle for him.

"Alice and I have some catching up to do with our quests, don't we," Oz says, possibly thinking along similar lines. "What about you?"

"No, I think I'm about where I'm expected to be. Maybe a little ahead." It took a while it get everything planned out and arranged for Oz and Alice's ascensions, mostly due to Sharon deciding she should arrange her own ascension first and Break agreeing with the strategic decision but having a lot of difficulty actually letting her do it. You stayed as far away from that as you could manage. And you couldn't spend too much time on Derse's moon to avoid drawing Jack's attention there, and you couldn't spend too much time near _Jack_ in case he decided he wanted to see a Heroic death, and you had to do _something_. Quests kept you busy. …Come to think of it that's probably why Vincent jumped to the Denizen conclusion. 

"Good. Then let's all go work on Alice's next — maybe with some more practice she can do some time looping to speed things up." 

"That makes sense," you agree. "We will need to… survey the damage, on Smoke and Shards. Jack broke… a lot."

"I hope the sprite instincts are making him feel guilty about it," Oz grumbles. "Do we have some kind of sprite curse? Maybe to pay us back for cheating with Break?" He pauses. "Uh, no offense, Cheshiresprite. I don't think Alyss has any complaints about you, and the business with Vincent wasn't normal for a sprite but he did start it. …Sorry, Gil."

"No need to apologize, it's true," you sigh. "The overall sprite situation… could be a lot worse." Although you guess that doesn't necessarily argue against the curse theory. "Vincent had… some bad prototyping ideas." Best to leave it at that. You're not going to tell Oz that Vincent intended to prototype with Echo before he realized she was also cast as a player, and you don't know for sure that the 'wonderful idea' he had planned for Elliot's sprite was what you were afraid it was. "And I understand Lottie Baskerville almost prototyped _herself_." Almost _first_ -prototyped herself, which would have led to _Lottie-based underlings_. What a nightmare.

"It's bad enough as it is. Jack, Oswald, Zai, dead, missing… Although I guess Alice's sprite went missing before we did the squaring, so—"

"Cheshire knows what happened to Other Alice's sprite," Cheshire interrupts. 

"Wait, you do?" Oz says. "How? _What_?" Alice and Alyss break off their conversation and look in your direction. Oz waves sheepishly and continues more quietly, "What, what happened?"

"The…" Cheshire gestures vaguely. "The… part of Alyss that is the Abyss, was… it was unhappy when the game started and it got pulled out because it wasn't a player, but it understood. It knows it needs to wait."

You're not sure you want to know what would have happened if the Core of the Abyss decided it _wasn't_ going to wait. Possibly Skaia would have fended it off somehow. Possibly the results of the fending off would have been even worse. 

"But it had a request about Alyss's sprite," Cheshire continues. "But Alyss wanted Cheshire, because Cheshire will always help her and Cheshire agreed Cheshire would be good at sprite stuff. So Alyss thought maybe Other Alice would give her sprite, since she didn't have any plans about second prototyping already, and had Cheshire take the… take the embers to the Land of Pins and Combs, and Cheshire was going to ask Other Alice, but she was busy and the embers were burning him, so he didn't and just did the prototyping without asking, and then Other Alice's sprite went away somewhere, and Alyss was going to tell Other Alice but a lot of things happened and she forgot."

Oz's eyes have gone very wide. "Oh. Oh! I thought there was nothing left, but if— _Oh_."

"Oz?" you ask. 

"I think — I'm not sure, I really thought there was nothing left, but if there was _anything_ the Core would have it and Skaia could make it functional, and _she_ might want Jack back—"

You have no idea what he's talking about. "Oz, slow down."

"We need to tell Break— Gil, I think it's _Lacie_. Alice's sprite is _Lacie_ , and she's the one who prototyped Jack and Oswald."

"That's…" You never met Lacie, she was gone before you came to the Baskerville estate, and she was hardly talked about. (Of course no one talked about her to _you_ , you might have realized they expected you to do the same to Vincent, eventually. Maybe even realized it in time to back out.) (You are… actually you are going to be more than a little angry about that, sometime when you have time to think about it.) What you know now is almost all from Oz, and half of his information is through Jack, and— "…Good?"

"Good that she has a chance to be… not… _gone_ ," Oz says, "because she didn't deserve that, and I owe her… well, good that way. Maybe not so good _practically_ , she's — unpredictable."

And, if Oz's theory is correct, has already contributed Jacksprite and Oswaldsprite. Which is not so good.

"What's going on now?" Alice demands, flying over. Alyss follows. 

"Oz may have figured out where Jacksprite and Oswaldsprite came from," you tell her. "Also where your sprite went.

"Oh," Alyss says. "Your sprite… I'm sorry, I meant to tell you about that…"

"My sprite prototyped those two idiots?" Alice says. " _Why_?"

"Because — if I'm right, but I think I'm right — because she knows them. I think it's _Lacie_."

"…Oh," Alice says. "Uh."

She clearly has no idea how she's supposed to react. You don't blame her.

"We'll figure something out," you say, more to try to reassure Alice than because you have any idea what you're going to do.

Maybe you'll get lucky and Jack and Oswald will just keep fighting each other forever and you won't have to do anything.

* * *

(  
**== > PAST PAST WITCH OF TIME: SUCCEED**

You didn't let yourself believe in the possibility of failure, but you are still, fine, _relieved_ when clouds of dragonflies start converging on the Quest Bed.

Gil will be okay. You made it here, you made it here _in time_. He'll be okay. 

Break arrives as the spheres on the posts of the bed light up. "Ah," he says. "Good."

"Yeah," you agree.

"Well done, Alice."

"…Thanks." Better done if you could have _stopped this_. "How did you know what was happening?"

"I don't, actually. Reim had a nebulous but severe bad feeling, presumably because he's a Seer, and then Sharon thought I should look for you immediately, presumably because she's a Hero of Light." Break taps a foot, notices he's not quite touching the ground, lowers a few centimeters and taps his foot again. "By the time I got here the Quest Bed was… drawing attention."

"Oh." At least that probably means it hasn't showed up in the clouds. Yet.

Speaking of which, like it did with Alyss, Skaia is taking special care to show everyone not in a _cave_ or something that Gil is reaching god tier. (You wonder if Oz can see it. Probably not.) And just like it did with Alyss, the vision starts out bloody. You look away.

Break doesn't take his eyes off the clouds. "I'm inferring it was Jack?"

"Yeah."

"Is he still in control?"

"Yeah. He said Oz — went away. He said that was the _point_." And then he'd dropped his guard for a minute, _ha_.

Break closes his eyes for a moment. "Ah."

"He's back… that way. A ways. I froze him in time," using his stupid musical watch, you're making a new time device the first chance you get, "but I don't know how long it'll last, and he'll probably dismiss me as soon as it wears off." What will happen then — where you'll go — you're not sure. The Abyss isn't really… accessible, from where you all are right now.

Maybe you'll wake up your dreamself. Ada and Reim both say you have one. …Say you and Oz each have one, in fact, you'll have to look into that.

"We'll get you back," Break says. "Get you both back. I have a feeling _Rogue of Blood_ powers may even help with that."

The god tier ascension is finishing up. Gil's magic outfit looks sillier than Alyss's.

You actually feel it when the time-freeze snaps. "Here it comes. Break, try to keep Gil out of trouble."

"That's rather a tall order—"

Your contract _warps_ like last time (except that was Oz sending you away to protect you, not Jack sending you away to protect himself), and the world blows away in fragments around you (or else the other way around), and then… purple.

You're sitting up in bed, in a room that's — that's actually a lot like your tower room, way back then. Except purple. You're wearing a long nightgown, also purple, with a crescent moon on the front. You are not soaked in blood.

You waste no time in jumping out the window.

Later, you'll have to take your time exploring. (Reim described the whispers coming from… whatever those things up there are as very disturbing, but really they aren't _that_ much worse than your typical Abyss background noise. The whispering things here are unusually big is all.) There's a whole city down there. And one of you owes whatever Agent stabbed Reim in the back a kick in the face. That's for later, though.

Ada probably said something about which tower belonged to who, but you don't remember it, so you just check them as you come to them. Sharon's (she's sleeping in it), empty one that might be Ada's, empty one that's definitely Gil's (you recognize his apartment), and—

"Oz!"

You don't recognize the room at all — maybe his bedroom from his childhood as Oz Vessalius? (Though you bet the original one didn't have such a rabbit theme in the decorations.) Oz is lying in bed, and doesn't react when you fly in the window and almost crash into the wall, but when you land on the bed you see his eyes are actually open.

"Oz?"

Open and glassy and unseeing, pupils barely visible. You're not sure what this is but it isn't awake.

You consider biting his cheeks, but pull him up into a hug instead. He moves without resistance. "Oz, it's… it's going to be okay. I got Gil to his Quest Bed, everything worked how it was supposed to, he's fine now. Probably worrying about us." Was that a bit of a change in his breathing? "He has a really silly magic outfit with a weird mask, you're going to laugh." He's started shivering a little, which is… probably a good sign?

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop him," you whisper. "I didn't want him to be able to do that to you ever again. But we're ready for him now. And you and Seaweed-Head are _mine_ to protect, and I'm going to keep you safe this time."

He's reacting more like a person now (less like a doll), but he still doesn't seem _awake_ , so you lean back, grab his shoulders, and give him a good shaking. "So _snap out of it_!"

He jerks backwards and falls off the bed. "Wha— Alice!"

Definitely awake now! Success.  
)

* * *

**== > PAST PRINCE OF DOOM: SO APPARENTLY THIS IS GOING TO BE YOUR PROBLEM NOW?**

You are pretty sure Elliot was expecting you to object to the handcuffs. Joke's on him; he has _much_ more of a history of wandering off and getting in dire trouble if you take your eyes off him for _five goddamn minutes_ , so you are, on principle, not going to object to a way of making sure he _doesn't_. (Knowing he's god tier doesn't help a bit. He's so stupidly heroic any death would probably stick.)

…But now the joke's on both of you because neither of you is willing to be the one who says you should take the handcuffs off. So you've made it all the way back to Elliot's Land of Storms and Towers and most of the way through a puzzle-quest involving boulders and you're still handcuffed together and it's not getting any less inconvenient.

Oz is going to laugh at the two of you, and you are going to deserve it.

Other than that, you're… not displeased with the current situation, even if it did messily kill your original body.

(You saw what happened to Jack, when it appeared in the clouds. Oswald was riveted in shock and… probably horror. Horror was a reasonable response to a human body doing that _at all_ , much less someone you _knew_. You hoped, vaguely, that Elliot couldn't see it — Gilbert — _Ada_ — but knew that given how Skaia worked they probably all could.) (Oswald immediately repressed any feelings of grief or concern and returned to his… doom-investigating and history-rewriting-planning, and you returned to trying to claw your way back into control so you could go look after Elliot, and that kept up until suddenly you were on Prospit, in the middle of fire.)

None of the past Glens showed up on Prospit initially, which was too worrying to be a relief. Some of them have popped up since, but a little mental swat shuts them up pretty effectively. Side benefit of god tier, you think.

"Just about done here," Elliot says. "What to do next, I wonder…"

Is he going to suggest the handcuffs should come off for ease of searching? You can agree, reluctantly…

Levi appears again. "You really want to hear this, so don't swat me," he says immediately. 

Frankly you _doubt it_ , but— "Elliot, just a moment. The occasionally helpful Glen has showed up with what he swears is useful information."

(You were able to talk to Elliot about… everything, somewhat, between your reunion and Oswald taking over. The Glens were one of the easier subjects, but you didn't feel it was necessary to describe them as more than 'takeover Glen', 'sometimes provides useful information Glen', and 'background Glens'.)

Elliot _harrumphs_ and crosses his arms, and sweeps his glare around the courtyard like he's trying to be sure it hits Levi. It's adorable. 

You turn back to Levi. " _What_."

"Oswald is now a sprite," Levi says, "which is where all the other Glens are. Jack is also now a sprite, and now Oswald is attacking him directly, but neither of them is making much progress."

He sounds equally delighted by every part of this. 

Your expression must be really something, because Elliot presses, "What is it, what's happened?"

"Be patient," you tell Elliot, and turn back to Levi. " _Why_."

"No one knows," Levi says, still delighted. 

"Well, who the _hell_ thought prototyping them was a good idea?"

"No one knows!"

"Actually I have a theory about that!"

Oz, Gil, and Alice were _not_ there a second ago. You jump, unfortunately not in the same direction as Elliot, and the handcuff nearly yanks you off balance.

"What the _hell_?" Elliot yells. 

"Sorry," Gil says, slightly sheepish. "Alice is experimenting with her powers."

"I may not need a device at all anymore," Alice says, not sheepish at all. "Definitely not for short freezes…"

(Time powers must be wonderfully self-explanatory. You're still not sure what Doom even _means_.)

Oz very clearly notices the handcuff, but doesn't say anything. Yet. "I assume you were talking to a past Glen about the Jack and Oswald prototyping thing?"

"The _what_?!" Elliot yells. 

"Yes," you tell Oz, then turn to Elliot. "That's about as much as he told me. Someone decided Jack and takeover-Glen would make good sprites, so now they are, and also they're fighting each other."

"That sums up what we _know_ ," Gil says. "The Jack sprite is… claiming it wants to help, but…"

But Jack is a flawless liar who has fooled _all of you_ before, and no one would have wanted to trust him even before he brutally murdered Gil with Oz's hands, probably smiling the entire time.

"Not quite all we know," Oz corrects. "We also know that Alice's sprite disappeared very early on, and we have just now learned that it did so after being prototyped with 'embers' at the request of the Core of the Abyss. And it's kind a long shot, but— I think it's Lacie."

Levi actually stops smiling for five seconds.

Then he smiles _wider_.

" _You_ be quiet," you snarl at him.

"Do you have—" Oz starts, then breaks off. "I was wondering whether you had access to any, um, relevant… or I suppose it would have to be…"

"You shouldn't try to be tactful, it doesn't suit you," you snap, not entirely truthfully. " _Levi_ is right over there, yes, although I don't see how he does us any good when you apparently know everything already."

(Elliot, you notice, is taking advantage of your having pointed out Levi's location to glare at him specifically.)

Oz looks away. "I have a lot of… of data. Interpreting it isn't so easy. I wasn't even properly— Never mind." He looks back at you. "I asked Echo-chan to go see if any of the Baskervilles on Derse can contribute anything, but if they can't, then we don't have anyone besides Jack and Oswald who interacted with Lacie as a person, and…"

Ugh. "I'll ask him any questions you like, but I am _not_ letting him borrow my body for a _secomd_. I don't even want to know what he'd do with it."

"Entirely understandable," Oz agrees. "Hopefully someone else will know her, but… we may be coming to you with questions."

"Wait, why is it understandable?" Elliot says. "What did _this_ one do?"

"You don't want to know," Gil says firmly. "…But I'm not sure you can avoid it."

Unfortunately, you agree. "So this Glen—"

"I don't want to hear that part of the story again," Alice says. "It's weird."

You don't blame her.

"We'll be off, then," Oz says. "Unless you need some help with the handcuffs — Gil can probably pick the lock for you…?"

" _No_." Elliot has a key.

…You hope Elliot has a key.

* * *

**== > PAST PAGE OF VOID: GO TO VISITING HOURS**

At least, that's the joke that Reim made. You understand it's a concept from prisons in the real world. You don't have any experience in that area; neither the Baskervilles nor Vincent-sama were ever at risk of arrest by mundane authorities.

(Whether or not they ever deserved it.)

Derse does not have visiting hours, especially not for players, who are officially targets of the regime. You have to sneak in. Reim did it regularly, to keep Duke Barma (and incidentally Lottie and Lily and Dug) appraised of how things were progressing, until he was caught and his dreamself was killed. 

At the time Ada-sama was the only other Derse dreamer with an active dreamself, and no one was about to suggest _she_ should infiltrate Derse's prisons. You volunteered for the task. You had an active dreamself, albeit in the wrong place, and you're good at sneaking around.

It was… an experience, early on, waking up your dreamself. You slipped out of control of Noise's body, expecting the dark waters you knew one day you'd never be able to arise from, but instead there was a yellow bedroom — unfamiliar, but the few things on the shelves were _your_ things, and the body was _your_ body, and overall it was so disorienting you ended up sitting on the bed for several hours watching your hands move and wondering at how connected to them you felt. Did other people feel like this all the time? It was amazing, what you could do in a body that felt truly yours. If it had been safe to leave Noise unattended you would have spent all your time dreaming. Another reason to was much appreciated.

There were some tense moments later, when Noise was lashing out and Duldee was struggling for control and Noise's body was crumbling and you still hadn't managed to _tell anyone_ about the kiss resurrection — but it worked out. You have a body which is yours. Duldee is gone. Noise has a body which isn't crumbling — sometimes she still tries, out of habit, to abandon control of her body to Duldee or a Duldum that isn't there, and then ends up zoned out or even fainting, but she's getting better. You think Reim is right — as terrible as the 'game' is, something about the Medium heals damaged souls.

Even without a distinct dreamself, you've only gotten better at sneaking. Void powers will do that.

(You think once you attain god tier, which is a possibility now, you may be able to turn invisible completely. It will be interesting. You're putting it off for now, though, because if you ascend to god tier Noise will want to, and you'd like to know what her powers would be first.)

You wait for the guards to change, then ghost in the tower window and over to the cells. All four are clustered together, which is convenient for you but you suspect not quite so convenient for the prisoners, who might prefer not to be in hearing distance of one another at all times. At the moment Duke Barma is critiquing the competence of the guards and Lily is complaining about the food. Both of them are being louder than is strictly necessary.

You go to Lottie's cell door. She's lying on the cot with her arms over her face. "Lottie-sama?"

She raises her arms and opens one eye to look at you, then quickly jumps up and hurries to the door. "Echo, wonderful, I thought I might have been imagining you out of wishful thinking. How is everything? Is that cockroach Jack still making problems?"

(Across the hall, Duke Barma stops talking to listen. Lily does not.)

It hasn't been that long since you visited, but a lot has happened. You decided not to explain the god tier mechanics; the sprite explanations will be bad enough. "He's no longer possessing Oz and has lost access to B-Rabbit's powers. He's now a sprite instead."

"Now a— Who was stupid enough to do _that_?"

"Still unconfirmed." The next part must be phrased delicately. Oz, Gil, and Hatter all had suggestions. "Oswald-Glen-sama is no longer possessing Leo-Glen-sama," (emphasize that Oswald _was_ doing something abnormal and forbidden even by Baskerville standards) "but instead of his soul disintegrating as expected following the possession" (emphasize that this wasn't going to end well for Oswald regardless) "he is also now a sprite. How this happened is also unconfirmed."

The delivery seems to have worked, as Lottie can't seem to figure out how she wants to react. Lily finally stops complaining.

"Oh, my," says Duke Barma.

You soldier on. "The unconfirmed theory about Jack and Oswald's prototyping is that it was Alice's sprite, and that Alice's sprite was second-prototyped with Lacie."

"Oh, _my_ ," says Duke Barma. "What a fascinating development!"

"Lacie was gone before Vincent-sama, Gilbert-sama, or Noise came to the Baskervilles," you press on, ignoring him. "We were hoping one of you might know her. That she might know you." (Oz knows Lacie, sort of, but it's from the time before he was conscious — he was just a barely-Abyss-contaminated plush toy. She's not going to know him, not as a _person_ rather than a thing, and you'd prefer to minimize Oz's interactions with people who might think he's a thing.)

"Well, well, _well_ ," says Duke Barma. You ignore him.

Lottie opens and closes her mouth a few times. "I… That was before my time, too, I think. I… Dug?"

You look hopefully at Dug's cell, but he shakes his head.

"I was there, yes, but as a Child of Misfortune she was kept separate from most of us… I wouldn't say I knew her, or that she knew me."

"Ah," you say. "I'm sorry to hear that." Probably not as sorry as Leo will be, though.

"I have the information from Arthur Barma's book of Jack Vessalius's account!" Duke Barma offers.

"We have adequate data already, thank you," you say. "I'm sorry, I should be going. It is beginning to appear the game is actively trying to lure Noise away by herself."

* * *

(  
**== > PAST FUTURE BARD OF HOPE: BE SUCCESSFULLY LURED AWAY ON YOUR OWN**

Echo is very busy doing… something they explained while you weren't paying very close attention. Something called the _Reckoning_ is supposed to be starting in a few hours, and some group of people is taking advantage of the distraction to do something on Derse, and some other group is something something evacuation, and… whatever. The Reckoning means the _end game_ is starting, and as soon as everyone finishes the stuff they're doing, they'll come get you and you can go back to Prospit and do the god tier thing.

(You will be the last one, although not by very much. No one wanted to see the Ada girl die so they kept dragging their feet and putting it off, and you wanted to offer to take care of it for her but Echo wouldn't let you.)

Once you're god tier you can start learning things you will need to fight in the final battle, which will be good as you've been feeling really hamstrung since you lost Duldee. Not everyone else is fighting with a Chain — besides the Ada girl there's the boy who had Humpty Dumpty but doesn't anymore, and you don't think the Intention of the Abyss has a Chain _normally_ , and Hare is useless in a fight — and Echo showed you how to fight underlings with knives, but you've still felt really weak.

For now though everyone is going to be busy for a couple hours, so it's a good time to check out that one transportalizer you only seem to find when you're alone.

It goes to a meteor, which isn't very exciting. But you explore a little more, and find a room with a _big strange engine_ , with pipes and keyboards and tubes and panels of opaque glass in a vague house shape. You have no idea what such a thing could possibly be intended to do.

As you wander up to it, though, one of the panes of glass _lights up_ with moving images. It's someone wrapped in a blanket in a dirty alley. A red crosshairs appears over them.

One of the keys on the engine's controls lights up, clearly inviting you to push it, so you do.

Huh.

You really are not _at all_ sure what's going on, but the engine seems ready to provide plenty of guidance!

(Afterwards, telling the others about it, you really can't remember much in the way of details. Vincent says it's just as well.)

)

* * *

**== > PAST MUSE OF SPACE: …FAMILY REUNION?**

The plan, in the end, involves going to the Land of Pins and Combs and _yelling_. Xerxes Break thinks that the sprite from that Land should have at least a _little_ awareness of it, and B-Rabbit and New Glen think that Lacie will stop hiding if she realizes people know it's her.

It makes sense, but you still feel like so many very clever people ought to be able to come up with a plan other than _yelling_.

Your presence isn't needed — really no one is needed but B-Rabbit (not Jack, B-Rabbit) and New Glen because they're closest to knowing Lacie, and Alice because it's her sprite and she's the one meant to have authority over it. Obviously it isn't just them. Gilbert is here because B-Rabbit (not Jack) and Alice are — which is all right, you don't completely trust Gilbert but he's been decent enough since you got to the Medium. The Nightray boy is here because he won't stop following New Glen around even now that someone got the handcuffs off them finally, which is all right because he's not a threat. Xerxes Break is here because… reasons, which is all right because… reasons.

(The reason Xerxes Break is all right is that you told him you wished not to be the Intention of the Abyss anymore, and the causation isn't clear, but — you're _not_. You love the Core, you _love_ it, but for the first time in your life you can _breathe_ —)

You're here because you want to support Alice, and because… you think maybe because… you want to meet Lacie.

Also because if you're here then Vincent can't be here, and he probably _wants_ to be here following Gilbert, so ha.

" _Lacie_!" Alice yells. "We know it's you!"

"Technically we _suspect_ it's her," New Glen mutters.

"Shut up, I want to stop worrying about this," says the Nightray boy.

New Glen grumbles but doesn't argue. New Glen does seem to defer to the Nightray boy, sometimes, which is… probably good. 

"Lacie!" Alice repeats. "You're supposed to be my _sprite_! Get back here! I had to get game guidance from Ada's sprite instead, and he's an asshole!"

You would have been willing to send Cheshire, for Alice, but he _was_ very busy advising you on ectobiology, so you understand why she didn't ask.

"What do we do if this doesn't work?" Gilbert whispers.

B-Rabbit (not Jack) shrugs. "If we can get them to Prospit some other way we can probably trap them — at least if their prisons are as good as their handcuffs—"

"Shut _up_ ," says the Nightray boy.

"—And failing that…" B-Rabbit shrugs, expression unhappy. 

"I expect either Raven or Jabberwock could pin them," Xerxes Break says. "After which…"

As long as you don't acknowledge what they're talking about, you don't have to have any feelings about it. So you don't. 

(You had a chance to meet Jack. In person. As yourself. For real.)

(He _ignored_ you.)

(He knocked over a house on you. You were fine, would have been fine even if you weren't god tier, but _he knocked over a house on you_. And just walked away.)

(Xerxes Break and Gilbert and the not-Duldum called Echo stopped and made sure you were all right, even though they were looking for Jack and he was only getting farther away. Echo sat quietly and held your hand while you calmed down, and Gilbert told you Alice was doing all right and was worried about you, and Xerxes Break did some sprite thing to call Cheshire to take you home or keep you company, even though Cheshire had been very rude earlier and threatened to steal his other eye.)

(You can meet lots of people now, in person, as yourself, for real.)

"Did something move?" B-Rabbit (not Jack) asks.

"Yeah, but it might be just another damn nakkodile," Alice says. "Or, wait — there."

Something moves, closer. And then—

There she is. A sprite, of course, and Alice's first prototyping was with a candlestick so she looks a little strange, but — she looks like Alice. Like you, too, you suppose, except for her hair. Her eyes are notably red, even with the overall red tint. 

"Hello, Alice," Lacie says. Looks over at you. "Alyss. I would have said hello earlier, but it took a while to pull myself together. There wasn't much left of me to start with."

There's an awkward silence. B-Rabbit (not Jack) pokes Alice in the arm. 

"We, uh, we figured that," Alice says. "But you've— You prototyped Jack and Oswald, didn't you?"

"Yes," Lacie says readily. She doesn't elaborate.

"Do you know what they—" the Nightray boy starts.

"Shut up—" says New Glen.

"I will not shut up, do you know what they _did_?" the Nightray boy says.

New Glen makes a funny strangled noise.

"Yes," Lacie says. "Or most of it, I think. I may not have all the details of Jack's… machinations, but I know he tried to drop the world into the Abyss and was awful to everyone."

What an interesting landscape the Land of Pins and Combs has. It's not at all the sorts of pins or combs you'd use in hair.

"I don't think _awful_ is strong enough," says Alice.

"Tried to drop the world into the Abyss _twice_ ," says New Glen. "And no doubt would have tried again if he could figure out how to from here."

It is, probably not coincidentally, the sorts of pins and combs that make up the innards of a music box. None of them play anything that you've seen, but the combs do ring melodiously if struck.

"And Oswald took over your body and wanted to erase… everything," Lacie says. "They were causing a lot of problems and should have been dead anyway, but," she shrugs. "Here I am!"

"…I don't think being a Child of Misfortune compares to trying to drop the world into the Abyss _twice_ ," says New Glen.

"Or even once," says Xerxes Break.

"To say nothing of _everything else_ ," growls Alice.

B-Rabbit (not Jack) puts a hand on Alice's arm, but he speaks directly to Lacie. "But despite everything, they're yours and you want to keep them."

Lacie shrugs again, and doesn't disagree.

(Jack was Lacie's before he was yours.)

(Jack _is_ Lacie's.)

(Was he ever really yours.)

Alice looks at you, then pulls away from B-Rabbit to come put an arm around you.

"In that case," says Xerxes Break, "could we prevail upon you to induce them to go to Prospit and accept being locked up there so they stop destroying everyone's nerves?"

" _Can_ you induce them to go to Prospit and accept being locked up there?" grumbles the Nightray boy.

New Glen's eyes flicker off to the side. "Oswald, probably. Jack, who _knows_."

"Oh, is Levi there?" Lacie asks. "I've been thinking since I got here, Levi, and I'm not saying you were wrong to introduce Jack to Alice, but I would like to know what exactly you were expecting when you did."

"It doesn't matter because I refuse to run messages for you," says New Glen.

"Shame, I was curious," says B-Rabbit. "Will you try, though, Lacie? It would be nice to resolve this without… additional violence."

"I wouldn't mind additional violence," Alice mutters.

"Tower for three, huh?" says Lacie, expression distant. Then she smiles. "Give us some books and it's a deal. Where are they?"

"Last I heard it they were on the Land of Glass and Whispers, but since they started moving they've been moving fast," Xerxes Break says. "We've tracked them across five different planets and the Battlefield so far. So we're just going to go to Prospit first and start loudly announcing you're there."

You wouldn't mind going to Prospit again. You liked it, once you separated from the Core and started having the Prospit-dreams a Hero of Space is entitled to. The people there were all very nice. You've missed it, some, since you ascended to god tier and lost your dreamself.

…Maybe you'll visit another time, though. Right now, you want to go back to Wells and Frogs.

* * *

**== > THIEF OF MIND: LOOK FORWARD**

You already know the sprite discussion isn't going to end how you might hope. 

Honestly you don't mind Hatter coming back. You hate him and he hates you but the ripple effect of grief would be annoying, and Elliot had a point, he looks a little strange but it's _barely_ different from all the other resurrections going around. Besides, his sneakiness and sprite-squared 'forbidden knowledge', whatever _that_ meant, were critically important. You could have managed without him, probably, but it would have been harder. 

Strangely enough you don't care about Cheshire, despite his _killing you_. He was a cat-based Chain, now he's a cat-Chain-based sprite, and either way he's bound to spend all his time fawning over the former Intention, who clearly needs all the friends she can get. You'll be keeping your distance from both of them, but — fine.

Lacie, well, Lacie is very obviously a sprite, she's not going to be able to go about the world at large, but if she wants to come hang around whatever you end up setting up to replace the Baskerville residence? You're all right with that. She's witty. She seems to have made friends with Noise, somehow. You are experiencing a feeling which may or may not be empathy for a fellow Child of Misfortune. Erasing her was the will of those _things_ , and _fuck_ them. Lacie is all right. 

Oswald… you understand why Elliot is so opposed to Oswald, and you don't like him very much either, but him, you actually want to come back, because he draws off some of the past Glens and reduces the pressure on Leo. Also, watching him stuck in a group he's not in charge of may be hilarious. (And, well. That could have been Gil, isolated and indoctrinated and suffocated in responsibility, even directly influenced with spells and suggestions, until he became whatever the system wanted him to be. Lacie has a chance to dig her _brother_ out from under Glen, that's what she's been doing the whole time they were locked up on Prospit, and the part of you that might be experiencing Child-of-Misfortune fellow-feeling wants to see the outcome.)

The trouble is once you let Lacie and Oswald come back it becomes difficult to exclude Zai by any justification other than 'we just don't like him'. He tried to kill Oz — but so did Oswald. He worked with the Baskervilles — again, Oswald.

He did work with the Baskervilles _while claiming to work with Pandora_ , but you can't exactly bring that up without acknowledging you worked more closely with the Baskervilles while supposedly part of Pandora. Same thing with killing Oscar, especially since you're not sure whether anyone has told Elliot that you killed the half of his family that he didn't, and _you_ did it on purpose. (You think Leo knows and wouldn't have expected him to hide it, but Elliot doesn't seem angrier at you than usual.)

He was cruel to small children while not a child himself, maybe? You don't _think_ anyone else did that? Unless you count trying to kill Lily, which _you_ certainly wouldn't. 

Unfortunately as soon as you make an argument for leaving Zai behind someone is bound to say you just want Ada's father out of the way. It's true that, while you're still not sure what you want from Ada, you'd rather not have _Zaisprite_ looming over you while you figure it out; it's also true that you just don't like him. Really, it's not like anyone else likes him either. Gil would've happily killed him, even if he probably would have felt bad about it later. Even Ada loves him — you assume — but she doesn't _like_ him.

Maybe you can Mind-power him into not _wanting_ to come back. You'd really like to win with Zai somehow, because…

"We can't leave Jack here alone with the frog," Sharon says resignedly. 

Because that. Yes. You can't. None of you want Jack anywhere near you except Lacie and _possibly_ Oswald — even the former Intention is lukewarm at best — but you really, really can't leave him alone with the frog.

"I'm a sprite now!" Jack says, either indignant or faking it. "I would never damage the Universe Frog!"

"Do shut up, Jack," says Lacie.

"Would it even be safe to leave him in the Abyss?" Reim asks. "From some of what you've said, I've sort of got the impression that even without, ah… other factors, the Core… is…"

"I don't think he should stay in the Abyss with the Core," the former Intention says, very softly. "People might get hurt."

Jack pouts in her direction, but she isn't looking at him. Alice glares back instead.

Sharon takes an audible breath. "So we have to bring him with us, or else execute him in cold blood."

You respect her for saying that. You'd respect it more if you thought there were a higher chance of a cold-blooded execution coming from this group.

Everyone starts talking at once, but you don't bother listening.

You're not the Seer, but you know where this is going to end up. You're going to end up bringing Jack with you, not because anyone actually wants his company or even particularly desires his continued existence, but because they'd feel bad about killing him when he's not fighting back, after he's been locked up not making trouble for a while. You might be able to Thief a few people into changing their minds, but not everyone, and you'd get caught at it, and then there'd just be trouble. You probably can't even kill him yourself, with Demios crunched in the final battle. (You'll need to get a new Chain and with your luck you will probably end up with a former nakkodile.)

This is going to be _extremely_ annoying. You wanted him _dead_ , and instead he's more alive than he's been since Sablier.

On the plus side, though…

The world is no longer falling into the Abyss. The Abyss is less distorted. And more importantly as far as you're concerned: Gil's alive, and he's happy, and not in imminent danger of losing the people who make him happy — and he would have. Leo's alive, and he's happier than you would have thought possible. You can't confidently say Elliot's happy, since you're not sure how thoroughly he's dealt with having killed half his family, but he's alive. Noise is — better than she was, and not your responsibility. Whatever it is you and Ada want from each other, you'll have _time_ to figure it out. The whole 'Glen Baskerville' _system_ has been unbalanced and skewed and may collapse entirely, because it's not even necessary.

The 'story' those damn 'Juries' were watching is _completely and irretrievably derailed_.

So… no regrets.

(Following Glen through the Abyss, seething over every _unnecessary_ ordeal those _things_ set up, out of the corner of your eye you saw a strange shape like a stylized house, or maybe like a spirograph. And you didn't hear a voice, you didn't _hear_ anything, but something said: _if you really want to hurt them then destroy what they love_.)

(It said: _they love how the story is supposed to be_.)

(It said: _the story can be made something else entirely_.)

(It said: _let me in_.)

(And maybe someone else with your past experiences might have thought harder about opening cosmic doors for strange not-voices, but the world was going to hell anyway, so why _not_.)

(Or maybe the game was always planned and that was just the lure to get you to start playing. That certainly fits more with the damned _ectobiology_ Noise happily doesn't remember much of, and Elliot being on Prospit for days already.)

(But then again time and causality are very flexible constraints in the Abyss _and_ the game, so…)

(Either way. No regrets.)

(This time, it's turned out all right.)

* * *

** Notes **

Oz: Heir of Heart, Derse; Land of Smoke and Shards  
Alice: Witch of Time, Derse; Land of Pins and Combs  
Gil: Rogue of Blood, Derse; Land of Weft and Snags  
Ada: Sylph of Breath, Derse; Land of Surf and Stone  
Sharon: Maid of Light, Derse; Land of Pearl and Labyrinth  
Reim: Seer of Life, Derse; Land of Vines and Pillars

Alyss: Muse of Space, Prospit; Land of Wells and Frogs  
Elliot: Knight of Rage, Prospit; Land of Storms and Towers  
Leo: Prince of Doom, Prospit; Land of Ash and Conifers  
Vincent: Thief of Mind, Prospit; Land of Smog and Candles  
Noise: Bard of Hope, Prospit; Land of Dust and Thrones  
Echo: Page of Void, Prospit; Land of Glass and Whispers

The following people were among Skaia's selection of players for its two or more potential alternate sessions. This is not a complete list.

Jack: Lord of Void  
Lacie: Witch of Breath  
Oswald: Seer of Doom  
Miranda: Thief of Heart  
Arthur: Page of Space  
Lottie: Maid of Time

Break: Knight of Mind  
Rufus: Rogue of Light  
Sheryl: Sylph of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this story leaves a lot of things undescribed; if anyone is interested I may expand on some of them on request. However, this does not include the characters learning any of the details of what the hell is going on, because who wants to explain that mess.


End file.
